Why We Need to Rethink How to Realize the "Responsibility to Protect" in Wartime

One hundred and forty years ago, the British statesman Sir William V. Harcourt, writing under the pen name Historicus, defined intervention as "a high and summary procedure that can sometimes snatch a remedy beyond the reach of law. As in the case of revolution, its essence is its illegality and its justification is its success." This definition has not been improved upon since Harcourt's time. He points to the illegality of intervention, well aware that to codify the practice would be to legislate for imperial adventures. But he nonetheless allows for exceptions, instances when the rule can be broken in pursuit of a higher good. And he identifies the criterion in such instances: success. Intervention is a matter of policy rather than
law. As well as considering intervention alongside revolution, he
might also have made the comparison with invasion; intervention is an
act of war, and as such is politics conducted by other means.

Intervention, Not War?
Most contemporary debates treat military humanitarian intervention and
its younger sibling, the responsibility to protect (R2P), as matters
of law. But perhaps because of the implication that "humanitarian"
actions are above criticism, and because the reality of war is clouded
by the euphemism "intervention," there has been too little comparative
and historical analysis of the topic. Still less have recent
humanitarian interventions been studied as instances of aggressive war
- albeit arguably "just war." This essay explores the contemporary
history of humanitarian intervention, arguing that Harcourt's
skepticism is as warranted today as it was when he discouraged the
British Parliament from voting to intervene in the American Civil War.

Subjecting war to regulation is both necessary and hazardous. Most
ethical traditions contain a concept of just war, and the concepts of
restraining excessive violence and respecting at least minimum
standards of humanity in wartime are as old as the practice of war
itself. There are rich traditions of scholarship on these issues, the
best ones informed by a somber appraisal of the inevitable
shortcomings of trying to restrain war in any way. Carl von
Clausewitz's maxims and observations remain true: he noted that war
tends toward the absolute in a ratchet of escalation; decisions are
clouded by the "fog of war" and their implementation is impeded by
"friction" that makes the simplest actions extraordinarily difficult
to carry out. The label of "humanitarian" does not make military
action any easier.

In the era of Harcourt and Clausewitz, the European imperial powers'
technical superiority on the battlefields of Africa and Asia was
matched by their own moral hubris. The Gatling gun was seen as the
agent of philanthropic imperialism, bringing civilization to the
benighted natives (at least those who survived the first encounter).
As the Ottoman Empire decayed, intervention to save threatened
Christian minorities in Muslim lands was rarely questioned, save on
the grounds of expense and prudence. Britain's right, indeed duty, to
intervene in Sudan - first to suppress the slave trade and later to
avenge the death of General Charles Gordon - was conditional only on
the right conjunction of circumstances arising. Only in the 1920s and
1930s, when the right of intervention was applied within Europe and
especially when it was cited by Adolf Hitler to justify the annexation
of the Sudetenland, was the doctrine discredited. Chapter VII of the
UN Charter makes no provision for humanitarian intervention, only for
war conducted against an aggressor at the behest of the world
community, as in Korea and Kuwait. The 1948 Genocide Convention is
silent about the means required to "prevent and punish" the crime of
genocide, and it would have been an anomalous anachronism for the
member states of the UN to have made an exception to its rule of
outlawing aggressive war by specifying that genocide created a duty of
intervention.

The UN Charter also makes no mention of peacekeeping. That was an
inspired ad hoc innovation dreamed up by Lester Pearson, Canadian
Secretary of State for External Affairs, during the Suez crisis in
November 1956. The idea that a neutral armed force can be invited by
two belligerents to supervise their truce is a remarkable one. Under
strictly-circumscribed conditions, it can work. Fifty years of UN
peacekeeping operations confirms the basic requirement: there must be
a peace to keep. Sending "peacekeepers" into the middle of active
hostilities is a recipe for failure, every time. Nonetheless, the idea
of dispatching troops that could actually enforce peace or provide
physical security to threatened populations has crept into popular
debate as an extension of peacekeeping rather than as a variant of the
just war.
The practice and principle of intervention did not remain quiescent
for long. India invaded East Pakistan, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, and
Tanzania invaded Uganda - each instance ending a human rights
disaster.

Today's principle of intervention owes much to Bernard Kouchner, who
was a physician with the International Committee of the Red Cross in
Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. He was horrified at the way in
which the principles of neutrality and discretion prevented the ICRC
from speaking out against atrocities. Kouchner went on to found
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), committed to le droit (devoir)
d'ingerence, or the right or duty of interference or intervention.
Initially, this motto implied the obligation of a relief agency to
meet humanitarian needs wherever they existed, irrespective of the
strictures of national sovereignty. Thus, MSF teams worked "illegally"
behind rebel lines in Ethiopia or Afghanistan. Later, Kouchner
advocated taking sides with armed force. Thus, the right or duty of
military intervention was reborn.

Mixed and Hidden Motives
Since 1991, there have been a dozen or so "humanitarian" interventions
- enough to draw some conclusions about how the practice operates. The
first case was the "safe haven" in Iraqi Kurdistan created by the
coalition forces at the end of the first Gulf War. This was both
humanitarian - it saved lives and sustained a political space in which
the Kurds could organize - and self-interested in that it saved
Turkey, a NATO member, from having to accommodate hundreds of
thousands of Kurdish refugees, including militants, in its fractious
southeast. No one claimed that this was purely humanitarian or
remotely neutral: it was part of the US-led military and political
campaign against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Operation Restore Hope in Somalia was next. America tends not to look
too closely at its military reverses, and many misconceptions about
the Somalia operation have gone uncorrected over the last fifteen
years. Space does not permit a thorough analysis here, but several
need to be highlighted. One accepted wisdom is that the early,
"humanitarian" phase of the operation was a success, and the later,
political national building phase under the UN, went wrong. The truth
is that no intervention can be apolitical, and humanitarian action
cannot substitute for political strategy. The political decisions that
led to the urban war against General Mohamed Aidid, whose militia shot
down Black Hawk helicopters on October 3, 1993, were taken during the
"humanitarian" phase. A second truth from Somalia is that once an
intervening force begins to fight, it can do nothing else. The moment
the UN and the United States went to war against General Aidid, the
international forces ceased to have any humanitarian role. And from
the beginning, the soldiers did not behave like humanitarian workers.
There were innumerable cases of misconduct, including torture, rape,
and summary killing. Violations by Canadian Special Forces were but
the tip of the iceberg. The level of resentment among ordinary Somalis
at these abuses should not be underestimated, nor should the
implications for the failure of the mission.

The National Security Council was more interested in pointing the
finger of blame than truly analyzing why the Somali intervention went
wrong. Presidential Decision Directive 25 was issued on March 31,
1994; not only did this commit the United States to not dispatch its
forces anywhere except for reasons of the gravest national interest,
but it instructed opposition to any intervention by other countries.
But the worst thing about PDD 25 was its timing: one week before the
genocide was launched in Rwanda.

General Romeo Dallaire, the embattled UN commander in Kigali, did his
best to save a few thousand Tutsis from certain death. With more
troops he could have done more; with the right instructions from UN
headquarters he could perhaps have prevented the genocide altogether.
Dallaire's advocacy of intervention commands respect. But the case of
Rwanda is more complex and troubling. At the time, humanitarians
called for an intervention to stop both the massacres and the war. Had
this gone ahead, the UN Security Council would certainly have insisted
on a ceasefire and made protecting civilians contingent on this
precondition. Given that the advance of the rebel Rwandese Patriotic
Front was stopping the massacres, such an intervention could easily
have had the perverse effect of prolonging the killing.

This skepticism is borne out by what happened when France did obtain a
UN Security Council resolution in the last days of the genocide
authorizing its Operation Turquoise - a supposed humanitarian
intervention in western Rwanda which was transparently a political act
aimed at securing a territorial foothold for the defeated genocidal
regime. This showed how intervention can easily be manipulated for
strategic purposes and discredited the very idea of humanitarian
intervention in central Africa. The same theme was reprised in
November 1996, when the RPF invaded eastern Zaire (now Congo) to
remove the remnants of the genocidal regime, and France again got UN
Security Council authorization for its troops to intervene (this time
with Canadian diplomatic cover). As far as the RPF was concerned, this
was an act of war, and it acted decisively to destroy the camps of its
enemies before the legionnaires could arrive. The breakdown in trust
between the RPF and the international community left the UN with no
leverage at all as Rwandese forces rampaged through Congo, setting in
motion an extraordinarily destructive civil war.

Debating "Success" and the Use of Force
The next examples from the Balkans and West Africa have more positive
outcomes. One was the NATO intervention that helped bring an end to
the Bosnian war. This came after several years of failed engagements
in the war, the most dismal of which was the UN Protection Force
(UNPROFOR), a misleadingly-named operation whose mandate was to
provide protection to UN relief operations, not to civilians. The
Bosnian Serb assaults on the so-called "safe areas" such as Srebenica
dramatically revealed the hollowness of the promises of protection-a
shaming that helped spark the more forceful NATO attacks on Bosnian
Serb artillery positions around Sarajevo in 1995.

A combination of circumstances ended this bloody and genocidal
conflict. These included the fact that the Bosnian Serbs had achieved
most of their war aims (ethnic cleansing of large parts of Bosnia);
that the Bosnian-Croat coalition had mounted an effective
counter-offensive; that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was ready
to sell out his Bosnian clients - and that the US had finally decided
to take military action. These achieved an outcome that Bosnian
President Alia Izetbegovic described as not just, but "more just than
continuing the war." The bombing was, in short, an act of war
(politics by other means) that succeeded in bringing about a better
(or at least less bad) state of affairs.

In Kosovo in 1999, military action was again undertaken by NATO. As
with Bosnia, there was no UN Security Council authorization - politics
overrode law. The Serbs were bombed into submission. There were
casualties and collateral damage in both Kosovo and Belgrade and the
campaign took much longer than expected. It was, arguably, a just war.
In Liberia, the Economic Community of West African States sent a
"military observer group" (ECOMOG) to the country in 1990. This began
as a Nigerian initiative to stop the rebel leader Charles Taylor from
taking power. This group stayed the course, fought battles, became
notoriously corrupt while its soldiers fathered many thousands of
children and spread and contracted HIV, and in the end presided over a
transition to relative peace and democracy. It was a forcible
political engagement which ultimately succeeded. In next-door Sierra
Leone, the dynamic was somewhat different, with British Special Forces
playing a leading role. But the overall framework was the same: the
objective, successfully achieved, was to prevent the complete collapse
of the state and to rebuild its basic administration and political
institutions, at times using lethal force. These operations are of the
species of colonial counter-insurgency and illustrate the diversity of
activities that can be described as "war." The military likes to call
such missions "peace support" to distinguish them from classic
peacekeeping: this is a useful euphemism akin to the colonial powers'
language of "pacification." But the real parallel is
counter-insurgency - best conducted as minimum-force policing.

Controversy swirls around each of these four cases, but in each
instance, a robust argument can be made that the military action was
morally justifiable. They salvaged the idea of humanitarian
intervention. Can we then take the next logical step and derive a
doctrine of humanitarian intervention and codify it? This is precisely
what the "responsibility to protect" seeks to do - while decrying the
language of "humanitarian intervention." Adopted at the UN General
Assembly in 2005, the R2P seems to promise a new world order in which
international military forces are used to protect civilians at risk
(at least in small countries as interventions in Chechnya and Tibet
are improbable).

Trial and Error in Darfur
Darfur has been seen as the test case for the R2P. Indisputably, the
international community has failed to provide protection for Darfur's
civilians. The small over-stretched and under-mandated African Union
(AU) peacekeeping mission cannot contain the violence. Most activists
and many diplomats draw the inference that the problem is lack of
international political will. If greater pressure were piled on
Khartoum (and if China were persuaded or bullied into line), they
assume, then the Sudanese government would permit the AU mission to be
replaced by a much tougher UN force authorized to take robust action,
which would actually halt the killing. Though this analysis is
attractive, it does not hold up.

Both supporters and critics of a UN force in Sudan argue on the false
premise that UN troops will have the mandate and capability to protect
millions of civilians at risk by using force. Despite the tough
language of UN Security Council resolution 1706 of August 31, 2006,
that is not true. The 20,000 troops envisioned would be enough only to
police the ceasefire agreement drawn up by the African Union at the
Darfur peace talks and to shoot their way out of trouble if things
went wrong. Policing Darfur - or more ambitiously, disarming the
Janjaweed militia - would require a far bigger and tougher force.
Doubtless, the UN could overcome some of the logistical and financial
problems the AU has faced, but a handover to the UN would be only an
incremental advance.

By contrast, the Kosovo-style military action called for by Susan
Rice, Anthony Lake, and Donald Payne, including attacks on Sudanese
airfields, asks the United States to declare war on Sudan. Rice, Lake,
and Payne make the heroic, and reckless, assumption that Sudan's
government will capitulate and the war will go according to plan.
Should it succeed, this might be considered a just war. But this plan
has no specifics about who will actually protect the civilians. It
does not propose a ground invasion with the troop levels needed to
protect Darfurian civilians and fight the militia at the same time.

However attractive it might be from a distance, actually providing
physical protection for Darfurians with international troops is not
feasible. And unfortunately, the clamor for UN troops has consumed
most of the diplomatic energies of the United States and its allies
over the last 18 months, diverting efforts from achieving a peace
agreement that was within grasp a year ago but has now slipped away.
And as a direct result, the existing AU troops have been left without
funds, and sometimes without food or fuel, and above all without any
effort to upgrade their numbers and capability.

Meanwhile, the focus on numbers, armor, and mandate obscured the
fundamental question of the concept of operations. What are the troops
there to do? Effective peace support is nine parts political work and
community relations to one part force or the threat of force, but the
Darfur debate has focused on force alone and not the politics of
stability. Making Darfur the test case for the R2P has not helped the
search for political solutions in Darfur. It unrealistically raised
the hopes of the rebels and intensified the fears of the government.
This illustrates the blind alley down which the concept of
humanitarian intervention has led many idealistic, principled, and
concerned people.

There is no such thing as humanitarian military intervention distinct
from war or counterinsurgency. Intervention and occupation should not
be confused with classic peacekeeping, which is difficult enough even
with a ceasefire agreement and the consent of the parties. If we want
an intervention to overthrow a tyranny, protect citizens from their
own government, or deliver humanitarian aid during an ongoing
conflict, we should be honest with ourselves - we are arguing for a
just war. And if we wish to make this case, let us be clear that the
war is political (and must be very smartly political to succeed); that
military logic will dictate what happens (including probable
escalation and various unpredictable factors); and that it will entail
bloodshed including the killing of innocent people.

Let us be very wary of developing any doctrine for humanitarian
intervention. Any principle of intervention can readily be abused - as
by the French in central Africa - or become a charter for imperial
occupation. There may be cases in which imperial rule is the lesser of
two evils, perhaps to end genocide (a current preoccupation) or to end
slavery (a late 19th century one), but philanthropic imperialism is
imperial nonetheless. As Harcourt noted, ethics can sometimes override
law, and invasion, like revolution, can sometimes bring about a better
state of affairs. But chasing the chimera of humanitarian intervention
distracts us and impedes the search for real solutions to crises such
as Darfur.

About the Author:Alex de Waal is a researcher and writer on African issues. He is a director of the Social Science Research Council program on AIDS and
social transformation, and a director of Justice Africa in London. His
books include, Darfur: A Short History of a Long War (with Julie
Flint, Zed, 2005) and AIDS and Power: Why There is No Political
Crisis - Yet (Zed, 2006).

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted
material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by
the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and educational purposes. We
believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material
as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted
material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair
use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Archived Sections

Working Groups

More from GPF

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.